By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
Those who honor their father
will have joy in their own children, and when they pray they are heard. Those who respect their father will live a
long life; those who obey the Lord honor their mother. Sirach 3:5-6
And let the peace of Christ
control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And
be thankful. Colossians 3:15
When they had fulfilled all the
prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their
own town of Nazareth. The child grew and
became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. Luke 2:39-40
Piety
We learn what's beautiful
about relationship from family. The
first family of love is the Holy Family.
All family spirituality takes its beginning in the Holy Family. We learn how to love one another by the very
love of the parents with whom we grew up.
The beauty of love is that wherever there is love, God is there. The way Mary loved Joseph and Joseph loved
Mary gives us the love that Christ had as he grew up in the Holy Family. Christ thought he knew his own way and
discovered when he stayed behind in the Temple that his parents not only missed
him but he learned that that was where he was meant to be. Scripture tells us that he grew in wisdom and
knowledge when he was with his parents for the next 18 years. Christ tells us when he's told blessed is the
womb that bore you and the breast that fed you.
Christ said blessed are those who hear the Word of God and live up to it. The piety of family is spoken to our hearts
through the relation of Jesus to his parents and his parents to him.
Study
Study is what we learn from
our own parents and family about goodness.
Jesus and his personality grew out of these interchanges between himself
and his mother and his foster father. This
made Jesus the way, the truth, and the life.
The greatest insights into family spirituality come from our own
families but they're modeled by Mary and Jesus and Joseph. The Holy Family gives us the dignity of
family life. A world that is growing
sour on family has lost the divine connection to happiness. Happiness flows out of belonging to others
and being loved for who you are. Many
people are waiting for the genius of some profound insight and they don't
appreciate that the ordinary family is divine revelation. When we reflect on the moments we have been
loved, out of those instants, divine revelation unfolds in our heart. The beauty of who we are in God's love has
its deepest meaning in how we are loved within our families.
Action
Family is where we put our
minds and hearts to work if we want to share the graces of the Holy Family. Love is not what another deserves but what we
are free to give. Family justice might
well be whatever anyone has suffered for the sake of the ones they love for the
family but true love begins where justice leaves off. No one can force one to love but the richness
of love is the free gift of our hearts for one another. Christ says, "If you'll be my disciple
take up your cross and come follow me."
No one lives in family without problems with one another. Love is the carte-blanche, or blank sheet of
paper, where we give others the chance to write the story of their hearts. Love is the reality of our loving a person
not just simply for who they are but even with their faults. Love is the truth that we would never love
anyone more if they got rid of their faults: we love them with their faults. Love is the realization that we can only
change ourselves and we cannot change the members of our family. Once upon a time in my life, I asked my dad
to apologize for not spending more time with me. With tears in his eyes, he told me that I was
worse than he, because I was trying to create a father to the image and
likeness of what I thought a father should be.
He told me I was playing a God and challenged me to accept the dad I had
if I wanted to have a father. Jesus
gives us the freedom to love as he loved and he won't love us more if we change. He loves us for who we are. Family love is the fullness of acceptance of
who we are, not who we should be. Family
love gives us the freedom to be ourselves and is the richness of the
spirituality of the Holy Family.
1 comment:
Beautiful! Thank you, Father!
Post a Comment